“Just warming up,” he said, grin wide. “Any requests?”

“Can you play soca on this?”

“Of course.” Confidence oozed off of him as the familiar sounds of a popular soca song echoed around the room. “Most people are usually surprised at what songs you can play on a classical instrument. Maxi can play just about anything on a viola. That’s viola, not violin.”

“What’s the difference?”

Keiran sighed like he’d gotten the question many times before. Cherisse hadn’t known his sister played any instruments, and she sure as hell didn’t know how a viola and violin differed, choir and the recorder being her only forays into music.

“Quick lesson,” he said as he continued playing song after song on the piano. “Violas are larger. Heavier, too, and have a deeper, mellower sound. Gorgeous instrument, but the piano is more my style.”

Of course, it was. She could imagine Keiran charming the pants off someone as he coolly and casually stroked the keys like he was doing now. But her pants were staying firmly on, thank you very much.

“Tell me. How many times have you used this piano to get laid?”

His fingers faltered on the keys, but he didn’t stop. “You really think the worst of me, don’t you?” Cherisse gave him a pointed look, and he chuckled. “Fine, one time, and I didn’t plan some elaborate seduction. She asked to see the studio, then asked me to play her something. The rest is history. Literally, because she’s the one everyone thinks I knocked up and left. But you know how that went.”

Fuck. Cherisse opened her mouth to apologize again, but he shook his head and launched into something she didn’t recognize, but it tugged at her, causing goosebumps to pop up on her skin. It sounded like a tune that would perfectly back a groovy type soca song, like the one she couldn’t quite nail. The type of song you’d hear in a smoky bar that wrapped around you like a warm hug.

“That’s beautiful,” she whispered.

He didn’t reply, but his mouth quirked up in his trademark smirk she was getting used to. She’d never dreamed Keiran could wrench a sound like this from his fingertips. She wasn’t quite sure where to look. Her eyes darted from his fingers stroking the keys, coaxing that mellow sound out, to his face, full of concentration, but something lighter, too. As if he not only took great joy in breathing life into the instrument but sharing that with others. With her. Damn, talk about baring your soul.

The song trailed off, and Cherisse had no words left. This Keiran she’d never seen. Knowing what he did and hearing the finished product on the radio was completely different from this moment. This raw, in-your-face moment of him replicating and creating sounds like these while his fingers danced across the keys like a lover’s touch.

Cherisse had never paid much attention to Keiran’s hands, but at the moment, she wondered what music he could wrench from her if he touched her like that.